Where the Huntington Hotel Picture Bridge pictures are: Larry Wilson

The pictures on the Picture Bridge at the Huntington Hotel are gone, people kept telling me — just gone. No sign, no nothing.

So I went down to the Langham Tuesday in search of Frank Montague Moore’s 40 California scenes on masonite, painted and put up in 1933 on Myron Hunt’s 1913 redwood bridge across the big ravine between what’s left of the old hotel and the “cottages” and ’60s-era wing above the swimming pool.

Yep, all gone. Nope, no note. So I inquired of the concierge. “They’re being restored. They’re in a museum,” he said. “It’s taking a little longer than expected.” “Oh. How long they been down?” “About 10 months. They’re not sure if they want to restore them or bring back duplicates.” “Rather than restore the originals?” “Right, they would hang up the duplicates.” “Ah. What museum is doing this?” “I believe it’s either the Getty or the Huntington.”

I’ll track that part down. Meanwhile, nobody asked me, but some free advice: Restore rather than replicate. The main wing of the hotel was already razed and rebuilt in the ’80s. To maintain the notion of “the historic Huntington Hotel,” there’s got to be some history left on the grounds, and Moore’s wonderful plein-air scenes ought to be in his hand, not someone else’s.

Random notes on Wednesday: Thanks to Vroman’s, the Pasadena Playhouse, the Playhouse District, El Portal, the Pasadena Arts Council, the Pasadena Arts and Culture Commission and big fun writing stars including Ruth Reichl, Lauria Ochoa, Mona Simpson, Michelle Huneven, Frank Girardot, Chuck Greaves, Denise Hamilton, Steph Cha, Gary Phillips, Desiree Zamorano, Ron Koertge, Brendan Constantine and ethereal singer Laura Jean, LitFest Pasadena on the Prowl Saturday night was a tremendous success. When you put on a ticket-less show free to attendees, there’s no way of knowing how many folks will show. But over 250 people packed the Vroman’s paseo for the kickoff, and over 350 people picked up Prowl lapel stickers through the evening in our six other venues. Congratulations to Poly’s Maddie Kim, Muir’s Yasmine Rodriguez and Poly’s Sam Astorga for placing first, second and third in the second annual Pasadena Prize in Prose short story contest for high school students. The real key: Amazing work from our committee and volunteers. See you on the Prowl in 2015 ... I keep hearing a new shorthand version for the way that we enunciate the years in the new millennium. Redistricting expert Alan Clayton says it. San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership’s Cynthia Kurtz does, too. It’s “Two-thirteen” or “Two-nineteen” for the name of the year out loud, not “Twenty-thirteen” or “Two thousand nineteen.” Kinda skipping the zero in there, I guess. Should we all adopt it, or what’s the best way to say the years? ... I got a message on the screen of my iPhone the other day: “Google would like to follow your microphone.” Are you kidding me? Follow everything I say, from telephone conversations to those times I verbally jot down some no-doubt great idea while pounding down the trail on my morning run? Of course I declined. But why would I imagine that Google isn’t listening in anyway? ... So former Altadenan and Pasadenan Pierce O’Donnell, co-founder of the Pasadena Weekly and onetime local congressional candidate, is Shelly Sterling’s new lawyer. “She doesn’t have a racist bone in her body,” Pierce told ESPN. “She is the innocent estranged spouse.” OK, then.